The Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars today announced that last week’s Annual Gilbane Boston Conference once again brought together the industry’s largest collection of recognized experts to share experiences, practices, and research, and to debate the use and future of content technologies. The 6th annual Gilbane Boston Conference took place December 1 - 3 at the Boston Westin Copley Hotel and attracted a strong turnout of customers, solution providers, industry experts, press and analysts — including Platinum sponsor Microsoft and Gold sponsors Alterian, atex, Coremedia, EPiSERVER, GSpann, Jive, Just Systems, SDL Tridion and SiteCore. Gilbane & Lighthouse also announced that the Gilbane Conference will return to Boston November 30 to December 2, 2010, and to San Francisco, May 17 - 20, 2010.

"Our 6th annual Gilbane Boston conference illustrated the health of the market for enterprise content applications, especially web content management. The increase in attendance was consistent with the consensus of our industry analyst panel that the market in 2009 was much stronger than it was for most areas of IT spending.", said Gilbane Group's CEO Frank Gilbane. "With the rapidly changing landscape of commercial, open source, and social software tools, and the improving economy, 2010 promises to be a very active year as organizations re-focus on the need to engage customers more effectively online to remain competitive."

Underscoring the conference theme, Content, Collaboration & Customers, Gilbane Boston 2009 featured presentations from industry experts and customers driving innovation in content technologies. Topics included Web Content Management, Enterprise Social Software, Enterprise Mobile Content, Authoring & Publishing, Content Globalization, XML & XBRL, Enterprise & Site Search, Semantic Technologies and Enterprise Content Management. Conference Chair, Frank Gilbane kicked off the two days with a candid conversation with senior managers responsible for large public web presences that are critical to their organizations’ mission. Panelists included the Director of Mass.gov, Susan Parker, Michael Edson, Director, Web and New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, at the Smithsonian Institution and Luuk de Jager, Senior Director, B2C Organizational Empowerment, Central Marketing Office Online, Philips Consumer Lifestyle.

Three key highlights at Gilbane Boston where:

• Attendees were able to "Test Drive" the upcoming major release of SharePoint at the SharePoint 2010 Experience on-site at Gilbane Boston, and had the opportunity to walk through, learn, and understand the new content management capabilities in Microsoft SharePoint 2010.
• Analyst Insight - Conference attendees where able to meet one-on-one with Gilbane and other select industry analysts during the conference to have in-depth discussions about issues, seek advice on your current projects, or follow up on questions raised during the conference. “We’re excited about the outcome of the Analyst Insight program, offered for the first time at a Gilbane conference,” said Mary Laplante, VP, Client Services, Gilbane Group. “Participants were able to enhance their educational experience by meeting one-on-one with an analyst. The program gave us a renewed appreciation for the challenges facing today’s users of content technologies.”
• The Annual Industry Analyst Debate focus was on What's Real, What's Hype, and What's Coming. Industry analysts from different firms participate in this annual event to make sure the conference attendees hear differing opinions from a wide variety of expert sources. Debate Moderator: Frank Gilbane, CEO Gilbane Group invited Panelists: Melissa Webster, Vice President, Content & Digital Media Technologies, IDC - Stephen Powers, Senior Analyst, Forrester - Dale Waldt, Senior Analyst, Gilbane Group - Kathleen Reidy, Senior Analyst, 451 Group - Guy Creese, VP & Research Director, Collaboration and Content Strategies, Burton Group. The analysts shared their perspectives on strategies for managing and delivering content to better serve their customers, and for promoting increased collaboration among their employees.

“At a time when many events have seen extreme drops in attendance, Lighthouse Seminars is pleased at the success we have seen this year with the Gilbane series,” said Jeffrey Arcuri, VP Marketing, “We’re excited that the Gilbane Conference series remains a priority for those involved in implementing strategies and managing content management projects and look to this series to help them be at the forefront of innovation needed to successfully drive their businesses.”

For more information about exhibiting or sponsoring at future Gilbane Conferences, visit: http://gilbaneboston.com/contact_us.html.

About Gilbane Group, Inc.

Gilbane Group Inc. is an analyst and consulting firm that has been writing and consulting about the strategic use of information technologies since 1987. We have helped organizations of all sizes from a wide variety of industries and governments. We work with the entire community of stakeholders including investors, enterprise buyers of IT, technology suppliers, and other consultant and analyst firms. We have organized over 70 educational conferences in North America and Europe. Information about our widely-read newsletter, consulting & advisory services, reports, white papers, case studies and analyst blogs is available at: http://gilbane.com.

About Lighthouse Seminars

Lighthouse Seminars' events cover information technologies and “content technologies” in particular. These include content management of all types: web content management, digital asset management, document management, enterprise intranets & portals, enterprise search, collaboration, social software, web and multi-channel publishing, electronic forms, authoring, content and information integration, information architecture, and e-catalogs. http://lighthouseseminars.com.